I was getting restless in the Smiting Chamber. The work of assembling forces went smoothly, and they began to enter the universe known as the Talj Junction. Having Yana up in the Meta Chamber was helpful, it seemed she was able to use it like a tow boat for the Smiting Chamber, easily guiding me around to various existences when I was in the mists. When I wasn’t in the mists, though, I was mostly alone in the Smiting Chamber. Most everyone else was in the Shifting Planes of Lêgba’s Disc and slowly making their way into Talj. I did practice with the mists to direct its ability to scry around the Fonlands. I am embarrassed to say that I was curious how Clay’s interaction with Ivan went. The last time I saw Clay, he was angry and looking for Ivan. The Smiting Chamber is a wonder because it can give you glimpses into the relative present of many existences of the universal structure, but it also accurately and objectively records the past, so I was able to find the interaction between Clay and Ivan after our last conversation. It was a violation of their privacy, but I was careful to only listen and not observe and I justified it by saying that I was only checking on the mental health of our team. I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, it was an intense conversation.
“Did you fuck Gu?” Ivan asked flatly.
“No, and I know you know that. Don’t come at me like this, Ivan, we can talk like adults. You know that I’m not interested in sex with anyone but you.”
“I don’t know anything,” Ivan said, his voice breaking and tears welling up in his eyes. “I barely see you since we got here, Clay. You’re always with him, apparently you sleep with him, you’re closer to him than we’ve ever been. I can feel it in your mind.”
“You can’t trust that, Ivan. Not with the training I’ve been receiving from him. You can trust me that I don’t want anyone else. This ain’t the best time to be having this conversation, you’re angry and you’re making it hard for me to bite my tongue. I’m not fucking Gu. And only one of us is the type to fuck somebody else to make the other jealous. I’m surprised you don’t have Owuo’s dick in your mouth now as payback for something you think is happening.”
“You can throw the past in my face all you want but everybody’s been talking,” Ivan countered. “And if he wanted it, even if you didn’t, couldn’t he make that happen? He’s a Vodun, Clay. And I wouldn’t fuck Owuo, by the way, he’s Death.”
Clay glared at Ivan, and it was clear from the look on his face that he was losing his control in the face of Ivan’s accusations.
“Not Owuo…but Desperation.”
“Stop it,” Ivan said, obviously pained by the words.
“I know you fucked Desperation to hurt me.” Clay said and tears began to fall down his cheeks but his voice never broke.
“You said you forgave me…”
“HOW COULD I FORGIVE YOU THAT?!” Clay yelled loudly, uncontrollably. “YOU EXPECT ME TO BE YOUR SUPERMAN ALL THE TIME BUT YOU LET ME DOWN, IVAN!”
Ivan folded in on himself, like Clay had punched all the wind out him. He cried silently. Steadily.
“I’m not like you!” Clay barked loudly, though not as loudly as he had yelled before. “I could never imagine being with anyone else, so I said what you needed to hear after you fucked Desperation and I’ve been trying Ivan. I love you, that won’t ever change, but I don’t forgive you that.”
Ivan nodded slowly.
“And that’s why you’re fucking the Vodun?” Ivan managed between sobs. “Your revenge? If I can’t redeem myself in your eyes, then why are we doing this! So we can spend the rest of our lives trying to hurt each other worse than last time? Either you forgive me or this isn’t a marriage, Clay. It’s hard to love someone who disgusts you. And I guess the Vodun Gu is everything I’m not.”
Clay shook his head slowly while he listened, then said, “You are my everything Ivan Santana. It’s not my fault you fucked up and can’t forgive yourself. I’m not trying to hurt you worse than you hurt me, I’m still coping with the hurting you put on me. Don’t come to me for absolution, I got nothing for you, little man. I’m not stooping to your level to make you feel better about what you did. If that means you don’t want to be with me, so be it, but you’re the one walking away, not me. I am pissed, Ivan, and I’ll say some blustery shit, but I’m not interested in making you feel the way you made me feel. That was horrible and nobody deserves to feel so betrayed by the one person who promised to love them and care for them.”
There was a long silence between them.
“Isn’t that why you fucked Desperation, to hurt me? Or did you just really want him from the first time he tried to kill us?” Clay asked finally.
“You were never there and when you were, you were angry with me. I just did it because we weren’t being intimate then, and, I don’t know…”
“You did it because you knew that it would hurt me.”
“If you talked to me, ever…” Ivan started.
“Ivan, I’m your partner. You don’t have to wait for me to talk. You’re in my fucking head for Christ’s sake.”
“I’d like to hear your voice sometimes…”
“That’s what it was?” Clay interjected with fury in his eyes and voice. “You liked the sound of his voice? That’s all it took? Fucking whore!”
Ivan exploded in green flames that swirled around him and the heat that radiated from him was intense. The flames engulfed Clay who only absorbed them as he walked closer to Ivan.
“You dirty slut,” Clay continued. “Is that what you want to hear from me Ivan? The man that loves you calling you a dirty fucking slut, cause thats all I got at the momentt…”
A ball of flame interrupted him and Ivan was levitating. He held his right hand high as another ball formed.
“If you can’t forgive me, let me go!” Ivan yelled. “Who is worse, Clay, the slut or the monster who cages it just to torture it?”
“SLUT,” Clay growled loudly and he was hit with another ball of fire.
“Now I guess Gu is showing you what it’s like to be a slut.”
“I’m not like you Ivan,” Clay said flatly and he turned, then walked away. “The thought of you in that man’s mouth may turn my stomach, but I’ve never wanted anyone else.”
He disappeared before Ivan could respond and Ivan continued sobbing uncontrollably.
Owuo appeared in the empty space where the two had flown in the Shifting Planes for privacy.
“He can forgive you,” Owuo offered. “I have hardly ever witnessed rage like his, though. He is a perfect hounnongan for Gu.”
Ivan cried.
“You know him well enough to know that he is testing you?” Owuo asked.
“Not anymore,” Ivan said between frequent sniffles. “This is something else. We can’t move past it. I wish he was fucking Gu. Then maybe we can finally be even, maybe go back to what we had. But he doesn’t respect me and I can never get that back. I don’t know how to be without him, but we don’t have a healthy future together. This marriage is over, I killed it.”
“Was it worth it?” Owuo asked.
“What?” Ivan asked with confusion.
“The sex,” Owuo responded.
“Of course not,” Ivan said angrily.
“You must have really wanted Clay to be angry. “ Owuo said.
“He abandoned me. He got wrapped up in being Earth’s defender and there would be days when I didn’t see him. I just wanted him back and I knew his temper. I knew if I made him angry, he’d drop everything and when Desperation came around again he wasn’t as crazy as he was the first time we fought him. He was sweet and I let him seduce me, not because I wanted to have sex, I wanted my husband back.”
“Guess that backfired,” Owuo said.
Ivan hung his head.
“He loves you,” Owuo continued. “And he is trying his best not to lose you. He knows how to maintain his temper, he has incredible control, but you push him just to get a glimpse of what’s inside. Trust me, Ivan Santana, you don’t want that one to lose control, you don’t want to see what’s inside. He wouldn’t kill you, he would burn the world down to keep you all to himself. You can trust him when it comes to you, but your reality is in danger if you cannot be the partner he needs. If it is done between you, let it be, Alia can help him pick up the pieces. But if you can return his love, you two will know power beyond imagination. You were made for one another. Tread carefully, Ivan Santana. Now, let’s try a large-scale construct battle to distract us from the real battle that will soon commence.”
Owuo can be a frustrating personality to say the least, but he seems to be a good mentor to Ivan.
While I was using the mists of the Smiting Chamber to scry during my downtime, I decided to check in on home, but in the mere days that we had been gone from the Dark Parallel, not much had changed and everything was just as I remembered it. Paul Young still looked human, which was a great relief because only the young Ivan and Clay of my universe were there to prevent any potential catastrophe.
Goldie came and sat with me often because Yana had confiscated the Meta Chamber. Goldie was fascinated by the beings of the multiversal structure and she made physical cards of each new being we managed to recruit and transport to the Shifting Planes.
“Isn’t this thing beautiful?” Goldie asked recently when I had downtime and we were sitting in the Smiting Chamber.
“Tenebris, beautiful but very volatile.,” I said with a laugh. “When Yana gave her the pitch, Tenebris was apparently in the middle of an important moment. In her existence, she overthrew her Bromeris overseers with the two other Rhadswiis left in their existence.”
“You’re saying these names like they should mean something to me,” Goldie said. “I just like her design. She’s alarmingly thin, but elegant, powerful. And she looks more intimidating than that 4Warrior from Lêgba’s Disc.”
“Have you met Nwa Wa before?” I asked.
Goldie nodded. “She was big in Smiting for a while, but the Meta changed. She’s always been a good card because of her control of the undead.”
“I haven’t actually met Tenebris but she is intimidating for sure. She is almost as tall as a vodun and her gray skin is nightmare fuel, but she still has a pleasant face when she isn’t screaming.”
Goldie and I compared notes about our favorite recruits from the multiversal structure. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we didn’t notice the last of our forces leaving the Shifting Planes.
PRL Serials 